Bay State

“ Their tradition is our inheritance; their achievement is our gain. Wisconsin cannot become a veritable workshop of social and economic experiment without the nation being the beneficiary. New England does not enrich her own literature without shedding luster on the literature of the nation. They and theirs belong also to us and to ours. Least of all, do I forget the old Bay State and her high tradition—State of Hancock and Warren, of John Quincy Adams and Webster, of Sumner and Phillips and Garrison and John A. Andrew, of Longfellow and Lowell and Whittier and Holmes. ”

“ The Bay State Monthly has improved the most rapidly and attained the highest rank of any similar venture in the history of American periodical literature.—Somerville Journal.
The Bay State Monthly is one of the standard publications of its class. It is not surpassed by any of its elders in the matter of chaste typography and beauty of illustration, while its literary conception and display are of intrinsic worth.—Gazette and Chronicle. ”

“ It is in order to make better use of this material, that a change is made, as will be seen, not in place, but in scope,—whereby the Bay State gives way to the New England; and the New England Magazine, which is the Bay State Monthly with a wider outlook, goes forth to commend itself to the good opinion of the citizens of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont, and of New Englanders everywhere. ”

“ In the old Bay State there is no elevation of surface that really deserves the name of mountain, but yet some of the more lofty eminences rejoice in this appellation which serves to distinguish them from their lesser brethren, the hills. ”

“ Each is proud of his State, and the Connecticut man especially, who has acquired wealth elsewhere, is fond of returning to his early home to display it; but attachment to the soil is not very strong in either, and neither will make heavy sacrifices for simple love of country. The Bay State man is more influenced by his principles, his convictions, like the South Carolinian, and the Connecticut man more by his interests. ”

“ Were the early judicial records of the old Bay State, and even of her daughter, Maine, while she was a young province, duly examined, they would afford ample evidence of enactments as numerous, and as strong, and as rigidly enforced in favor of good order and decorous deportment, as those which have conferred everlasting honor upon the early character of good old Connecticut. ”

“ In 1645, an earnest petition went up to the council from Prescott and his associates, complaining that much time and means had been spent in discovering Nashaway and preparing for the settlement there, and that on account of the lack of bridge and causeway at the Sudbury River, the proprietors could not pass to and from the bay towns—"without exposing our persons to perill and our cattell and goods to losse and spoyle; as yo'r petitioners are able to make prooffe of by sad experience of what wee suffered there within these few dayes." ”

“ Upper California is bounded on the north by our Oregon possessions, and if held by the United States would soon be settled by a hardy, enterprising, and intelligent portion of our population. The Bay of San Francisco and other harbors along the Californian coast would afford shelter for our Navy, for our numerous whale ships, and other merchant vessels employed in the Pacific Ocean, and would in a short period become the marts of an extensive and profitable commerce with China and other countries of the East. ”

“ Therefore when, in 1652, what had been known as the Nashaway Plantation was fairly named for its founder in accordance with the petition of its inhabitants, some one of influence, whether magistrate or higher official, perhaps bethought himself that no Governor of the Colony even had been so honored, and that it might be well, before dignifying this busy blacksmith so much as to name a town for him, to see if he could pass examination in the catechism deemed orthodox at that date in Massachusetts Bay. Alas! John Prescott was not a freeman. ”

“ An experience similar to that of the Virginia settlers—disappointment, hardship, death—attended the immigrants who, under George Popham, Raleigh, and Gilbert, attempted to make a permanent home on the coast of Maine, but their house was a log camp, with not a solitary woman to light its gloom or cheer its occupants. Failure, defeat, and death were the inevitable consequences. There was no family, and there could be no permanency of civilization.
The planting of Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay Colonies was of another sort. ”

“ Doctor Robert Child, a scholar who had won the degrees of A.M. and M.D. at Cambridge and Padua, a man of scientific acquirements, but inclined to somewhat sanguine expectations of mineral treasure to be discovered in the New England hills, seems to have been a leading spirit in the adventure; and unfortunately so, since his political views about certain inalienable rights of man, which now live, and are honored in the Constitution of the Commonwealth, seemed vicious republicanism to the ecclesiastical aristocracy then governing the Colony of the Massachusetts Bay ”

“ The fishermen of this lonely coast, landing on dark nights, with nothing else to guide them as to their whereabouts, can always readily settle the point by handling this shingle, and by use can tell within a mile of the particular spot.
The story of West Bay’s struggle against this insidious enemy is an old one. In 1722 the Bridport authorities procured an Act of Parliament empowering them to restore and rebuild the haven and port, the piers and landing-places, in order to bring the town to that ancient and flourishing state whence it had declined. ”

“ The second story contains a hall the whole length of the building, 48 feet wide and 42 feet high. The building belongs to the State and is used for waiting rooms for some of the great railroads and for the many large ferry boats which cross the [206] Bay to Oakland, Alameda, Berkeley, Sausalito and many other points. The Bay is filled with shipping of every description and from all parts of the world.
FORT ALKATRAS is on an island. If the prison there could talk, it could tell many a tale of suffering during the civil war, the only offense being, the occupant sympathized with the Confederacy. ”

“ Fox, Anderson, and McNeils Islands are integral parts of the Bay Island country, a rich district tributary to Tacoma and offering unlimited opportunities for campers who are always welcomed by the hospitable ranchers. Hartstine Island maintains one of the largest vineyards in the west, yielding delicious grapes which find their way to distant eastern markets. Numerous smaller islands are scattered about the Sound and insure pleasant retreats for all that love the simple life. ”

“ The Hudson Bay Company raised the English flag and the collector as promptly landed and raised the Stars and Stripes. There was a constant contention between the United States and State authorities, and the Hudson Bay people, in which the latter were worsted, until in 1856-7, after much correspondence, both governments appointed a commission to settle the difficulty. Then followed years of discussion which grew from time to time warlike, but there was no settlement of the points in dispute. ”

“ "The island of Utopia is in the middle two hundred miles broad, and holds almost at the same breadth over a great part of it, but it grows narrower towards both ends. Its figure is not unlike a crescent. Between its horns the sea comes in eleven miles broad, and spreads itself into a great bay, which is environed with land to the compass of about five hundred miles, and is well secured from winds. In this bay there is no great current; the whole coast is, as it were, one continued harbour, which gives all that live in the island great convenience for mutual commerce. ”

“ Truly ’twere to have been wished that something more excellent had been the main end of the settlements in that brave country, which we have, even long since the arrival of that more pious colony at the Bay, now seen dreadfully unsettled, no less than twice, at least, by the sword of the heathen, after they had been replenished by many hundreds of people who had thriven to many thousands of pounds, and all the force of the Bay, too, to assist them in maintaining their settlements. ”

“ As the American revolution advanced, additions were made to the numbers, intelligence and wealth of its population, owing to causes already mentioned. It was the capital of a province rich in its forests, its agricultural and other resources. Its Bay was prized as the peerless harbor of the Gulf, which it was proposed by the British government to make a great naval station, a beginning in that direction having been made by selecting a site for a navy yard adjoining the town to the westward. ”

“ Socially, Green Bay is delightful. There are many old families, whose founders were engaged in superintending the fur-trade and transportation lines, or holding government office, civil or military, at the wilderness post. This element, well educated and reared in comfort, gives a tone of dignified, old-school hospitality to the best society,—it is the Knickerbocker Colony of the Bay Settlement.
At four o'clock we pushed into a canal in front of the Fort Howard railway depot, and half an hour later had crossed the bridge and were registered at a Green Bay hotel. ”

“ But we touched in Queen's Bay just in time. The Governor (who is his own only subject) was very cordial and jolly and kind. We all went ashore, and pitched tents, and ate ducks and penguins till the men grew strong. I scraped her, nearly down to the bends, for the grass floated by our side like a mermaid's hair as we sailed, and the once swift Florida would not make four knots an hour on the wind;—and this was the ship I was to get into Bahia in good order, at my best discretion! ”

“ Lastly, we take a look at the fishing-tackle, with which the light-house keeper goes out to troll for salmon. Glorious sport! The great, delicious fellows, to be caught by a fly! But we, humans, need not sermonize about being taken by small bait!
Baker's Bay is not without its little history; albeit, it is nothing romantic. In 1850, a company conceived the plan of building up a city, under shelter of the cape, and expended a hundred thousand dollars, more or less, before they became aware of the fruitlessness of their undertaking. ”

“ Not a ripple disturbed the placid and glassy surface of the magnificent bay and harbour, upon which rested at anchor thirty large vessels, consisting of whalemen, merchantmen, and the U.S. sloop-of-war Portsmouth, Captain Montgomery. Besides these, there were numerous small craft, giving to the harbour a commercial air, of which some of the large cities on the Atlantic coast would feel vain. The bay, from the town of San Francisco due east, is about twelve miles in breadth. An elevated range of hills bounds the view on the opposite side. ”

“ Dickson's use of the term "La Baye" requires qualification to prevent misreading him. 1. The old Baye des Puans or Puants, Stinkers' bay, so called from the malodorous fish-eating Winnebagos who lived thereabouts, became from its verdure la Baie Verte, our Green bay, i. e., the whole water of that great N. W. arm of Lake Michigan, into the head of which Lower Fox r. empties. The last 7 m. of this river makes a sort of estuary from the foot of the last rapids, or head of natural river navigation, to the waters of Green bay ”

“ Captain John Smith, military leader of the expedition to Virginia in 1607, who explored and mapped the Chesapeake Bay and the Bay Country, described it thus:
"There is but one entrance by sea into this country, and that is at the mouth of a very goodly Bay, the widenesse whereof is 18 or 20 miles.
"Within is a country ... heaven and earth never agreed better to frame a place for man's habitation.... Here are ... hils, plaines, valleys, rivers and brookes all running most pleasantly into a faire Bay compassed but for the mouth with fruitfull and delightsome land...." ”

“ A very great murmuring, nevertheless, prevailed among those that were refused, which was scarcely kept in due bounds by the presence and authority of the governor Don Stephen himself. And from this honourable emulation, and the discontent these brave soldiers who were left behind shewed, the bay where the galley rode in the harbour of Masuah, on board which this council was held, is called to this day Bahia dos Agravados, the Bay of Wronged, or Injured People, sometimes misinterpreted the Bay of the Sick. ”

“ About three Leagues in from the mouth, on the Eastern side, there are fair sandy Bays, and very good anchoring in four, five, and six fathom. The Land on the East side is high, Mountainous, and Woody, yet very well watered with small Brooks, and there is one River large enough for Canoes to enter. On the West side of the Bay, the Land is of a mean height with a large Savannah, [47] bordering on the Sea, and stretching from the mouth of the Bay, a great way to the Westward. ”

“ Sailing thence to the southward towards the large island, we discovered a very large bay, well peopled, and very fertile in yams and fruits, hogs and fowls. They are all black people and naked. They fight with bows, darts and clubs. They did not choose to have peace with us, though we frequently spoke to them and made presents; and they never, with their goodwill, let us set foot on shore.
This bay is very refreshing, and in it fall many and large rivers. It is in 152⁄3° S. latitude, and in circuit it is twenty-five leagues. ”

“ A little distance beyond or west of it is South Harbor, another small place, which has the advantage of being at a point where the south channel approaches closely to the shore with a crosschannel almost due north to the Gray’s Harbor wharf.At the mouth of Johns River is the Markham post-office, and still farther west is Bay City, at the head of South Bay. A milling establishment—Laidlow's—has just thought of starting a sale of town lots on the neck of land between South Bay and the ocean. Thus the success of one point stimulates ambition in others to compete with it. ”